Much of my previous entries have decidedly been focused on the breath.
Make no mistake, the physical practice of aligning our posture, breath, and mind (to the best of our ability) is an important component to finding our original unmoving center. Sitting on our meditation cushion continually chasing ever occurring daydreams is tantamount to a dog chasing it’s tail.
The sanskrit word samsara is the identity and attachment we establish with these wandering thoughts. Depending on the circumstances of any given day, a lifetime of emotional baggage surfaces often causing pain, sorrow, and confusion.
As upsetting as this may appear, there is really nothing there except thoughts. Letting go of those thoughts set’s us free.
With true meditation, we begin to realize that not one condition or situation in life is “chiseled in granite.” Slowly we begin to experience this “original unmoving center” and that all phenomena are empty of substance.
Life’s continuing romance with what is ever changing ephemera ceases to control us.
I would like to share a teaching story first presented to me by Zen Master Wu Kwang more than 30 years ago. At the time, I was a young student. It had both a profound and pivotal influence in my life direction at the time.
The Stove – Breaking Monk
In the early days of Zen in China there was a monk who became known an the Stove Breaking Monk. He lived high in the mountains on Mount Sung near a nature spirit shrine which had a stove placed in it’s center. People made animal sacrifices there, and then requested things. One day the monk and his attendant came to the shrine. The monk walked up to the stove and hit it three times. He then yelled out, “Stove you are only a combination of mud and tiles! Where does your holiness come from, where does your spirit originate? What makes you so perverted that you delude people in this way?” He then hit the stove again three times.
Suddenly the stove collapsed and in it’s place, a tall thin man dressed in green appeared. The Stove Breaking Monk asked, “What kind of being are you?” The man said, “I am the spirit of the stove. Although I have been incarnated here for many lifetimes, today because of your dharma, I have been released and reborn. I want to thank you for this privilege.” The monk said, “This is not due to anything I said. It is primarily due to your original nature.” The spirit bowed, thanked him again, then disappeared.
After some time the attendant spoke for the stunned people who remained standing there watching in awe. He said, “Master, although we have been in your presence for some time, never has your teaching spoken this strongly to reveal something. What was it that the stove’s spirit perceived enabling it to be reborn in such a way?”
The Stove Breaking Monk calmly replied, “I pointed out to that he was only a combination of mud and tiles. There was nothing special conveyed.” Everyone looked very perplexed. The Stove Breaking Monk, seeing this, asked if they understood. “No we don’t understand” was the reply.
So he said, “Why is it that you don’t understand original innate nature?” Feeling a sense of shame, they bowed down for instruction. His teaching was very simple. He only said, “It has fallen down; fallen down. It has broken up; broken up.” He then left.
Zen Master Wu Kwang offered the following commentary:
This is our story because all of us have set up and designed some kind of shrine and erected a pile of mud and tiles. And we also worship something at this pile of mud and tiles. It is called construction and fabrication.
We are taught “Don’t make anything” but we are always making something and then fabricating a story about how special it is in some way. Also, we fear that if it were to fall apart, we would then feel as if we were nothing! Essentially that is true, because from the beginning there is “no-thing.” But that “no-thing” is not connected to the neurotic fear we have when we think we will become nothing if we don’t keep our stove and shrine intact!
Sadly, we sacrifice many animals there. We sacrifice our original openness. We sacrifice our vitality. We contract ourselves down to something. By holding on to this shrine, we fail to see what we essentially are. This picture of ourselves could be a negative, toxic image or a positive wonderful image. Either way, we attach to it out of fear or pride which are first cousins to one another. In olden times, Zen Master Yang-Shan said, “It is enough to see it; don’t try to avoid it.” If you try to avoid something you are already giving it energy. So perceive what it is that you have constructed and set up, and perceive how very subtle it is, and how it resurrects itself over and over again. Be very patient with yourself and see again and again what you are holding, what you are attaching to, and what you are making. Don’t try to get rid of it! Just see it.
After perceiving this construction and seeing it’s subtlety, you probably will discover some usefulness to it. Mud and tiles have their usefulness and their place. But, if the purpose of something is perverted, and is a substitute for the real thing, then it becomes a problem. Your picture of yourself is not you. When you let go of your picture of yourself, then you can also quite compassionately, without effort, allow everything to be what it is.
Ji Haeng Zen Master – The Desert Dragon